Today a friend visited me, so I seized the occasion to perform a hardware blind test. Computer blind test, like original vs MP3, I can do them alone with a program, but for real vinyl vs CD blind tests, I need someone to switch the source selector "in my back".

It was a "vinyl versus digital" test. A vinyl was playing back. The line out of the ampli was directed into the DAT deck, 48 kHz 16 bits. The ampli vinyl input (pure analog) was compared to the DAT input (digitized to 48 kHz 16 bits).

Preliminaries listening sessions : the digital sound seems more bright, shiny and detailed to me, the vinyl more smooth, silky and "noisy". The digital sound seems also "tiresome". No difference in frequencies or definition, just feelings.The voice seemed to be more separated to the instruments on the digital version to her, though there is quite no difference between the two versions.

Then, in turn, the operator writes down on a paper a serial of sources, digital or analog, that are going to be played. The subject must then write on his own paper the source that he thinks he is listening to, for each session. Then the results are compared. After the test the roles are inverted, the operator becomes subject, and the subject operator.

Results :Me :6/10, but I guessed 3 of them recognizing the level difference, the real result is then 3/7.Her :5/8. After 5 trials she said she couldn't concentrate. We stopped for 2 minutes, then I played the references again, and she said the feeling was opposite now : the voice seemed more detached in the analog version, and that she had probably inverted all previous answers. Anyway, noting 0 for false and 1 for true, she got0 0 0 1 1 -pause- 1 1 1 , so it's a failure whatever way we interpret the results.

Here's a sample of what we listened to, to illustrate the ability of digital to reproduce the "warm, fuzzy, fat, analog sound of vinyl".sandra.mpc 516 kB, 22 seconds

Most CD's are poorly done, opposed to most LP's (vinyl) which seem to have been more carefully taken care of.

QUOTE (jkauff @ Posted on Apr 18 2003 - 01:42 AM)

I don't think that's a fair comparison. That turntable/cartridge combination is fine for DJ-ing, but it's very unsatisfactory for quality audio reproduction. I'm surprised digital didn't sound better than analog EVERY time.

But that is not what the test was about!

The purpose was to find out whether a digital format (close to CD quality) has the ability to simulate vinyl-sound or not:

QUOTE (Pio2001 @ Posted on Mar 30 2003 - 11:56 PM)

It was a "vinyl versus digital" test. A vinyl was playing back. The line out of the ampli was directed into the DAT deck, 48 kHz 16 bits. The ampli vinyl input (pure analog) was compared to the DAT input (digitized to 48 kHz 16 bits).